The Definitive Best Man Speaking Guide Part 2
The Principle of Empathy
This is quite simple to understand and do, and yet such a powerful tool to have in your repertoire once mastered. It’s the ability to share in another person’s emotions or feelings. When you speak, have you noticed how the audience
often agrees with your words? Notice people nodding in agreement? Or have you ever noticed in a one on one situation, how if you fold your arms, the other person will fold their arms too? Or simply rest your head on your hand, watch to see them doing this too! It’s amazing, but people tend to converge on the dominant persons behavior… this is especially true when you are the center of everyone’s attention.
This is because the audience unconsciously feel what you feel and therefore respond accordingly. Therefore, it is of vital importance that your body language is following your words. Carefully! The caveat of this is of course that the body language is subtle, and not fast and abrupt, as this would be frightful and offer you a disturbed reaction, and maybe fright or horror.
Make sure you include your audience by looking at them. You’ll never get empathy from anyone who doesn’t feel included, so eye contact is very important.
Why Physical Action Helps
When you demonstrate purposeful, effective physical action while speaking, you will be displaying a barometer to your audience of your true feelings. Any nervousness or obvious lack of self confidence in what you are saying will have the effect of showing your audience a certain lack of interest!
So make sure to be careful. As soon as you step up to speak to make sure your physical actions are purposeful and heartfelt.
But there are also some benefits for having purposeful actions:
Your message is more memorable
Punctuation to your message adds more meaning
Nervousness can be channeled away
Your message will be more memorable because it is human nature to get bored if you’re receiving static, mono type content. That’s why mediums for communicating information have progressed so far from the days of just radio.
Since television sets were invented, the information we’ve been receiving through them has become more and more interactive and interesting. Imagine a news reel that had only a news reader telling you the headlines!
Would you be more likely to watch that channel, or the channel that shows some live footage along with the story? A sports match is the perfect example of the actions speaking louder than the commentary! You can watch a watch without the commentary, but it is frustrating not being able to see the touchdown, or the home run or the winning goal live on a televised broadcast.
You need to try and take this concept and apply it to your speech. Make your stories as animated as possible, using figurative and descriptive visual words. Actually describe situations and draw pictures with your words, and then animate your words by using actions that enforce your words. Body movements should be purposeful and calculated.
If making a point, or series of points, try raising a finger in the air to signify this is point one, then raise another finger to indicate a second point. Or, I prefer actually moving from one spot to another to illustrate points, or even talking to the left side of the room for one point, and the opposite side of the room for another. Whatever you choose, it is important to note that as long as your actions are in tandem with your words; your point will get across with the desired effect.
There is no one way that is better than the other, but rather, it’s the way that suits your personality and style of speech that will work best for you. Isn’t is strange that in written language we have a whole lot of different punctuation and symbols that can bring words alive and change the emphasis and meaning of complete sentences or paragraphs? When you speak, you also have these tools of punctuation that can add power and emphasis to your speech. They are body movements, facial expressions and vocal variety.
Eg.
Modulation of voice.
As previously explained, when making points you can move around, raise your hands, look at different parts of the audience etc… now if you where to raise a question, what type of movement could purposefully add punctuation to your speech? Maybe shrugging the shoulders? How about en eyebrow or two? Or tilting your head up and to the side as if you were considering that thought for a minute? These are all ways to illustrate a question with your actions. Everyone gets nervous before a speech. So don’t worry if you get nervous, so too do the greatest speakers. It is a healthy reaction and shows that you genuinely do care. However, if you are fearful to the point where you find yourself unable to control your voice and actions, then this can destroy your speech. If this effects you, then here’s some tips and advice to help you through your nervousness.
Firstly, lets identify the origins of your fear.
Nervousness in public speaking works on three distinct levels… They are; Mental, emotional and physical.
Your mental and emotional responses can be controlled through self confidence which is built up with practice and familiarity. Once you’re familiar with your content, and practiced a few times, your self confidence will in turn increase which will naturally decrease the likelihood of having a nervous response.
Speaking publicly activates the adrenal glands, creating an active energy force. Your heartbeat will quicken, and your breathing will become shallow and rapid. Your muscles will tense, and you will become visually nervous to your audience unless somehow all this tension is alleviated. In this respect, having practiced purposeful movements in your speech will help remove these natural distractions that can occur when speaking in public.
Your Speaking Posture
How you position your body when you speak has it’s own little communications and visual messages to your audience. More than anything, it reflects your attitude, telling your listeners whether you’re confident, alert and in command of the situation or not. Good speaking posture has other benefits too. It helps you breathe properly and project your voice effectively. It also provides a great starting point from which to gesture or move your body around during your speech.
Good posture will have the effect of helping to alleviate tension and minimize random movements that can be distracting to your audience. So what is proper speaking posture?
1. Stand straight. But not too stiff! You should be relaxed but upright.
2. Balance your weight evenly between you feet.
3. Your knees straight, but not locked
4. Chest up, stomach in
5. Head and chin up, but not overly so as to look pompous
6. Let your arms hang freely beside your body.
7. Take a couple of deep breaths, and count from 5 down to 1 while
breathing out.
Feel relaxed yet? If this position doesn’t feel natural for you, then it won’t for the audience either, so modify your stance and posture slightly until you feel completely at ease. Try the breathing and counting in each position until you find your optimum stance. This is the stance you should use to begin all your speeches henceforth. Turn the Page to Part 3 >>
.